METANOIA

FIRE

Pixelated flames from a digital fireplace crackled behind her inaudibly. At least he couldn't hear it.

Her name was Melinda; his wife, for now at least.

Melinda's meticulously dyed orange hair twirled around in the air. Her blonde roots flashed through just enough to make her look like an angry fireball ready to scorch his soul. Her bubbly face, covered in freckles, once was a source of fascination for Barry. Now, twisted as it was with rage, she looked abysmal. Her jagged words spat in spurts as they scorched away his skin. For Barry, it felt like she was tearing away pieces of his soul as her invisible claws gnawed deep into his heart.

There she was, the love of his life, reduced to a wailing banshee.

He dropped his eyes to look at the bouquet of roses standing on the center of the table. He had bought the roses for her over a week ago, and they were oddly resilient. She had arranged them in her favorite vase, another gift from Barry.

Melinda banged her first on the table, and the sound echoed from a dying chime to a permanent ringing in his ears. He looked back at her.

Barry watched her lips move; the sound escaping them began to pierce his ears. Something was different in Melinda's voice. It had always sounded ethereal to him, like a celestial symphony. Now her voice cracked and hammered as though it were a drunken sailor pounding away on a harpsichord. Nothing she said made any sense to him, ever since:

"I can't do this anymore."

The ringing in his ears was persistently becoming overwhelming, relegating everything to a distant mumble. Melinda was muffled, and her battering punch lines echoed in his mind like cannon fire, miles away.

Tears were streaming down her face. She was in pain too mostly due to his apathy. There was a spark of guilt behind her eyes. A string of mucus hung at the corner of her nose. Melinda's mouth was slightly skewed by partial facial paralysis, a birth defect Barry had always cherished, but now between the snot, saliva, and tears, her face looked like it was melting.

As his life turned into slow motion, Barry heard somewhere in her monologue that, "I can't," changed to, "We can't." She was deciding for the both of them (as usual). As her lips flicked her vile words, a piece of saliva flung toward the roses. The moment hung in the air; and in that instance, everything slowed down.

The vase on the table was crystal, scintillated as the morning light played around the house. Barry had bought the vase for Melinda as a sign of appreciation for her handiwork. At the time, she was with her former fiancé, a deadbeat douchebag in some band whose mediocracy was appalling. Barry never understood what she saw in him, and all she did was complain about the relationship. When Barry brought the vase to Melinda, her fiancé had hated it instantly, but she loved it, and that was all that mattered. The roses in it were all red except for a single white one. Barry had bought them for no particular reason; they were a humble gesture of his passion.

"Are you even listening?" she shrilled.

A lightning storm was wreaking havoc inside his chest. The earth had moved from under his feet, and he was in free fall. It wasn't so much the way she ended their relationship, but rather how suddenly it had all happened. The night before, they had gone to bed with grand plans for the following day. They had made love. They were going to go fishing, perhaps finish the deck they had been working on. It was only about nine hours ago.

That morning, all he said was, "Are you ready?" as he kissed her gently on her forehead. While he was getting his fishing equipment ready, Melinda put on one of his giant T-shirts in a miserable state. Then she oozed to the kitchen table and just blurted it out: